Broken
by Kataerias
Summary: Leandra & Sapphierra r ladies of the Tedrels during the Tedrel wars, helping 2 take care of the Children of the Tedrels, being beaten and raped by the Army and Priests involved. Will C. Kalman & C. Abira be able 2 rescue them? Slash Fanfic
1. Prologue: Leandra In Camp

Thank you for the reviews!!! Oh yes, and:::  
Disclaimer:: I don't own the books or setting or anything, but I do own the characters! Please   
dain't use my characters! ;) Thanx All!!!!! Oh, and if there's any more confusion - Leandra is  
always 1st person in this story, so 'I' is always referring to Leandra's point of view :)  
  
  
I slushed my way through the thick, cloggy mudhole back to the camp. Harsh firelight met my eyes,   
which were used to the gentle silvery moon. Silence descended as the campmembers turned their heads to   
make out my complexion.   
  
I ran a finger along my pale, porcelain-like face, seamed with the scar that I touched, in greeting   
to the men. Their eyes flickered under the firelight and I saw the leader run a finger along his own   
scar-seamed face. Slowly I walked into the camp, letting my muddy dress talk for me, shaking out the excess.   
  
I closed my eyes, bent on one knee in silent, fake prayer that the priest-leader believed, and submitted   
myself down on my hands and knees totally.   
  
He rose tall above me, towering over me, and I Felt rather than saw the flicker of furious delight, and   
I braced myself. Just in time, too, and the slaves started whipping me mercilessly. I cried out in fake pain,   
as I was used to this punishment, and let myself cry dragon-tears, dare not I to look up at his vengeful face.   
  
Men closed on all sides around me as I felt one raping me. Virgin, I was not, for this treatment had been   
done for several years. Beautiful was my face, scarred, my body, broken, my mind. I screamed loud, and no   
birdcalls were heard for miles around. He shoved into me and I buried my face into the ground, into the dirt.   
  
I wished yet again that I had not been born beautiful... Wishing that maybe, this time, I would be given   
release from a God I knew not of.. 


	2. Chapter 1: Meet Kalman

14-year-old Kalman Mikkals trudged through the icy stone walk-way to help his grandmother up into the carriage.   
They had not been to town for a while, and since her illness had brought her down, she had missed it. Kalman secretly knew,   
just as she did, that this would probably be one of her last journeys to town, and it was rather hard on both of them.   
  
Grandmother had always been his confidant, and he had loved her as he had liked her more than anyone else. But   
no one loved eachother in their family, and so the tie could be broken, as it would be after her departure from the living.   
  
He took her hand gently, watched her feet, helped her up so that she wouldn't slip, and got into the carriage beside her.   
She smiled gently at him, her faded green eyes sparkling for a moment before the fire went out of her, and she almost slumped   
down in her seat. Almost, except for it would just not do to see a lady of noble birth slump, and so she knew manners as a   
second-nature hindrance. The family had always taught great mannerisms in their younglings.   
  
Kalman watched the old woman winking at passersby, throwing small coin for the poor corner-lurkers that seemed   
never to smile, but as he watched, they did smile. Because they knew too, secretly deep down, that they would never get fair from this   
woman again. And so they treasured it, kept it in their loose, raggedy robes to hold for a special occasion. She waved at the small children.  
  
And she turned to Kalman, laying her hand gently upon his, startling him from his trance of mesmerized bewilderness, shocked   
by this tiny sign of affection. He pulled her hand into both of his, entwined their fingers, somehow knowing how to comfort her, though   
a bit awkwardly. She smiled at him and he saw the first tears forming on the corners of her wrinkled eyes, and he held her instinctively.   
  
"I love you, Grandmother." he whispered gently, and stroked her back as she hugged him, letting her cry a little and then   
compose herself. And then she was back to business.   
  
The carriage stopped and Kalman led her down the step carefully. Her hands were as icy cold as the slushy street and he   
rubbed it to keep it warm.   
  
Grandmother smiled genuinely at him and let him lead her around to the pawn shop. Inside, Grandmother automatically   
went to the arts-and-crafts section. She had said that craftiness was a very good thing to have when you were out on a tough job.   
Kalman had no notion of what that meant, and wasn't very good at crafts, often losing his patience. But he could make a nice   
quilt or overshirt if the mood struck him right.   
  
Kalman's grandmother promptly picked up a nice, soft green-colored, more expensive material than most in the pile in this   
shop, and held it up to herself. Kalman thought it looked exquisite on her, and indeed made her look even more youthful, and she   
had aged quite gracefully as it were.   
  
But she put it down just as promptly, her sparkling emerald eyes spying something new. Gently she picked up a deep blue   
velvet material, supple and warm-looking, that matched exactly to Kalman's pure eyes. She held it up to his chest. "That would make   
such a nice suit for you, dear!" she exclaimed, and patted his shoulder softly as she judged how much they would need.   
  
Then her eyes darkened, unreadable, and she said, "But you must help me to make it, youngling,..." and left the rest of the   
sentence unsaid. No need to waste words on something they both knew. He nodded.   
  
"I will," he said solemnly and put his hand on his heart to show her that he meant it.   
She smiled at him. "I love you." she said, and her eyes flashed as she bought the materials and they   
proceeded to shop around the town for the last time, just the two of them. 


	3. Chapter 2: Kalman Is Chosen

No tears shown on Kalman's face, though his eyes glittered with some unshed. A mask of solemnity and   
politeness adorned his face, which made him inwardly cringe. He glowered inside at the indifference of his family,   
as only the guests seemed to cry. The room seemed stuffy and made him choky and quiet.  
  
No few of the poor off the streets were bowed down on the lawn outside, whole families of the poor, who   
weren't allowed to come into the funeral chapel, as the family said, to keep it clean.  
  
What they really meant is that the poor didn't belong in a room with them, and they were not honored in   
the least when a child about 5 came in with a handful of coins and promptly dropped them onto the floor   
beside the coffin and ran out. Kalman hid a smile and gave up an entering guest's hand to pick them up and go   
outside. Grandmother would have wanted them to have these, just in case.  
  
Grandma's coffin, as oppose to who and how she was, being impersonal and imposing, sat on a grand stage   
up front, intimidatingly huge. It was a dark, foreboding oakwood that she would never have agreed on, and cheap-looking   
inside. But it had to be a closed-casket procession anyway. No doubt, the family would be shamed to see her face as she   
was in death, and not caring about them anymore.  
  
Kalman slowly stepped out into the bright sunlight and immediately felt a deep sorrow worming into his gut,   
making him almost wretch with the emotion. Streams of the poor bowed down in the sunlight, devastatingly hot and humid,   
crying and looking up sorrowfully at him in their best clothes, which weren't very good.   
  
He knelt in the grass, knowing that his mother would never let him wear this suit again anyway, because once   
you wore it once, that was it, it was contaminated, and let the coins roll out onto the lawn in front of them all.   
  
A young girl stared down at the coins and smiled suddenly. "You were the grandson she always talked about!"   
she cried gleefully, but softer than a normal child would have, because she knew that the people inside could never hear this.  
  
He smiled, but was suddenly bewildered. She talked to them? When had she done that? But the child was   
still talking, and he had been ignoring her. Now he tuned back in.  
  
"So, so, you mean, you're gonna be our friend! Another Mikkal! Why do you help us! We love you so!   
Thank you, thank you!" and she promptly jumped up and hugged him as he sat on his knees.   
  
He had the urge to hug her back, even... and so he did. Squeezing her little body in a big bearhug, he smiled happily,   
more happily than ever before. He had found a friend. A true, real friend. And he heard bells... Was it a companion?  
  
Everyone looked up as he let go of the girl, and he stared at the true, bright beauty of the creature companion.   
  
The white horse went around the walk, looking for something, and suddenly, with all his heart, he wanted to be what it was   
looking for! He got up, not caring to dust off his black pants, and looked straight into its eyes. And he knew that it had, indeed   
been looking for him.  
  
The girl smiled, cheered, and everyone started cheering for him as he climbed onto...her? back.   
  
Vesta, he suddenly realized. Vesta, meaning Guardian Of The Sacred Fire...   
  
He didn't have time to analyze through that though, and terrific fear engulfed him as he finally knew that he had never   
really rode a horse before. And then they were off, Vesta gathering harsh speed that made him hug her neck.   
  
::I won't let you get hurt, Chosen.:: She said into his mind.   
  
That jarred him a bit and almost knocked him off her back, but he managed to hold on, asking, "Is that you? How did   
you do that?"   
  
Her ears cocked back to hear what he was saying, and she slowed a bit so that they could converse.  
  
"Why me?" Kalman asked quizzically, and he felt her speeding up again.  
  
::Because I love you.:: was her simple answer, and she left it at that as they went past the guard and gate and into a whole   
new life. 


	4. Chapter 3: Sapphierra's Finding

I closed my eyes, waiting for the strength to cool the hot summertime air. I knew my Magick would be seen,   
but I couldn't care, I was almost at the gate of Death anyway.  
  
Carefully I picked myself up and kept going, forgetting about cooling the air, just wanting to get to a new civilization.   
I promised myself that eventually when or if I got out of this forest, I was never coming back. And I really didn't want to die   
here, in the middle of nowhere, who would?  
  
Finding a bit of strength from knowing there had to be civilization up there soon, I trudged on relentlessly. Blisters on   
my back swelled in the sunlight, and suddenly I found myself on the ground, screaming, because I remembered...  
  
  
Escape has come, I realized immediately. No one could hurt me anymore if I just gave into this boy's wishes..  
  
I slinked sexily up to a young man clad in brown and green, an Earth Mage. He looked at me, stared at me as I opened   
the front of my dress, and quickly pulled me around so that no one could see.  
  
"What do you want in return?" he said at last, panting, his rough voice volumed down low so that I was the only one   
that could hear him.  
  
"I want Freedom." I said, shivering in my cool dress.  
  
"Freedom?" He looked at me hesitantly, and I knew that he wanted to call the other guards on me. But I wasn't done, yet.  
  
"Yes, Freedom and a week's headstart to escape."  
  
I knew this was a bit much, and I had to control my voice totally so that my shivering in cold and something else would   
not be heard.  
  
"You've got it, lady." he said, and I blinked, surprised.  
  
"Really???" I asked, and the shakes really did sound bad now.  
  
"Really. I promise, with all that's in me. I've seen what everyone's done to you." he said the last nonchalantly, because   
he had just been doing those things to me too. But I didn't care about that now.  
  
"Thank you!" I cried in a harsh whisper, and I hugged him tight, kissing his forehead.  
  
"Here." He handed me his water cantine. I smiled gratefully, and I saw a bit of pride flash up in his eyes in the firelight   
before running off.  
  
Suddenly I heard screams and curses. They had found him with his clothes off... I turned halfway around and out of the   
corner of my eye I saw him, staring at me, his dead eyes rolled into the back of his head as another Officer pulled a bloody knife out   
of his back. I kept running...  
  
Shivering, I drew a small knife hidden in the back of my shoe and chafed away at the skin until I saw a tiny stream of blood.   
I licked it up immediately, needing some sort of fluid to sustain me for another day. The metallic taste shot through my tongue and   
head and I almost wretched, but I knew I couldn't because I didn't have anything left in me.   
And so I got up again, chasing a dream of Freedom that was falling to pieces, hoping that maybe, even in the forest, I would like death better than this..  
  
  
Sapphierra ran as fast as she could in the direction of the other maiden. Pain lanced through her body, slicing off her energy,   
and she cried out softly as she hit the ground, feeling the pain of the maiden Leandra through her own bones, not 50 yards away.   
  
Biting her lip until it bled, she met the girl, walking unintentionally back in the direction she had come. Sapphierra pulled Leandra   
into her arms instinctively and slowly pulled the girl's feet up, carrying her cradle-style in her arms, knowing that she was the younger of the   
two and could last longer.  
  
I awakened to find a girl about 4 years younger pulling me up into her arms and carrying me through the forest. My side ached and   
I pressed my head against her breast, closing my eyes, comforted and free with someone I had rarely met, but always loved.  
  
Sapphierra looked down at this girl, and kissed her forehead. Somehow this friendship had gotten to love too quickly to tell. But she   
had wanted to be loved, and here she had found it, and she accepted it in its form.  
  
She pulled Leandra up a bit more so that she wouldn't drop her and Felt and Healed the blisters formed on Leandra's back. This was   
going to be a long day... 


End file.
